Preface: So, I've never actually been inspired to write about Legolas, but shortly after the movies came out a zillion years ago, the fanfic world was quite abuzz with folks churning out a whole lotta Legolas-loves-Mary Sue stories… so just for fun I challenged myself to try and write one that wouldn't immediately be set on fire by the internet… I left it unfinished for many years until I suddenly jumped back into fic writing last year and decided to take a stab at finally finishing it. If y'all have any suggestions or nitpicks they are welcome :)
Note: Just FYI this is about book-Legolas rather than movie-Legolas, which in my head are quite distinct. Melwen & Mirílis are characters of my design, and also of my design is the marriage of Celebrimbor (again, if it needs saying, the book one not the screen one). If anybody knows who Malgalad's real wife was (or any other facts I may have gotten mixed up), please let me know.
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Prologue
The Origin of Mirílis
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Melwen was of the Dark Elves of Lorien of the First Age, so named because of her disarming and endearing nature. Her mother was a Silvan Elf of Northern Greenwood who had won the love of Malgalad, the King of Lorien. During the Second Age, many of the woodland elves went over the pass and settled for a while in Eregion, and among them were Melwen with some of her friends and kin. And while she lived there her eye was caught by none other than Celebrimbor - the very forger of the Rings of Power.
Though Celebrimbor had an unrequited love for Galadriel, Melwen saw him and loved him; for as a Moriquende she was enamored with the light of Valinor she saw in his pale eyes. She helped tend the trees that had been cultivated there, and he befriended her. Eventually he perceived her love for him, and at length he finally opened his heart, and they were wedded in a garden of holly trees within the elven city the Fortress of the Elves.
Shortly before Sauron invaded Eriador, Melwen bore him a daughter, who was very much a daughter of the Noldor in both looks and mood. And Melwen named her Mirílis because many elves of Eregion remarked her to be the most precious jewel of Celebrimbor's making. Celebrimbor made for her a wondrous gem, cut and polished from a stone which he had found in the mines. It was a curious color of dark gray, but it could catch and cast the any light as if it were the lost Silmaril shining from the within the deeps of the sea.
When news that Sauron's forces were making for Eregion, the Dwarves allowed for the refuge of the families of Ost-in-Edhil in Moria before the gates were shut. So Melwen returned by this way with her infant child to Lorien and awaited news of her husband. It was years later when news finally reached Lorien of Celebrimbor's fall, alongside all who stood in desperate attempt to defend his beloved House of the Mírdain. Melwen wept, disconsolate in the fair and merry land of elves singing beneath the yellow crowns of the birches in autumn, and when her father was slain in the Battle of Dagorlad she and her mother forsook Lorien, and came with her child to her mother's kin in King Thranduil's realm, in the north of Greenwood Forest.